Alrighty, so the moment y'all have been either dreading or waiting for! G$'s thoughts on this figure!
Just a quick disclosure, this portion of my review will just contain the figure itself and NOT the Tony Stank headsculpt...that will come separately as its own post.
Overall impression: I like it!
That being said it's not without its issues, some of which are solely QC related.
So the figure as a whole is solid! It's what we've come to expect from Hot Toys at this point. There's no crazy updates in terms of engineering or innovation, although I guess it can argued that the ability to swap out an entire arm (for the non-movie accurate Nano gauntlet) and the movable bicep piece is fairly new, but by and large it's more or less the same Iron Man figure with an updated look.
Okay, so moving along when I opened the box and removed the foam tray I was initially thrown by what I perceived to be a "defect." If you look at the torso area where the chest section meets the abdominal section it's clearly crooked and janky.
I was slightly concerned at this point thinking I might have to send the whole thing back, but alas I took it out to examine it. So if you're casually looking at it you're not gonna notice the misalignment on the torso. In fact at quick glance it looks stunning! Gorgeous, really! Also, I'm happy to report that those golds are muted in-person and those piss-yellows we were seeing was a result of poor photoshopping. Dial it back on the saturation please!!!
Also, side note real quick. In response to
LexiKon318, unfortunately it seems like your Iron Man's arm has a paint defect since mine doesn't contain it.
Anyways getting back to my critique...
At this point my worries were not quelled. As you can see the torso just looked blatantly misaligned...like someone in the factory didn't assembl it properly. It's especially evident from the back when you see that the patterns don't even line up.
Now at this point I was pretty concerned that this was a poorly constructed figure that may potentially need to be returned/exchanged, but I decided it was worth trying to "fix" at least and I tried to jig the torso into proper realignment. Doing so actually yielded better, but NOT perfect, results. As you can see here the torso from the front looks centered.
However the back is still a bit off. So I guess the only solution to the misalignment is to have both sides equally misaligned...if that makes any sense? If you look at the gold pattern running down on both sides, they don't line up perfectly. It's pretty much impossible...and I guess that's by design given that these are segmented parts on the figure. Although I'm curious, for those who own this figure...that's how it's supposed to look like, right???
Anyways, I was relieved to see that this potential defect/flaw was able to be rectified...but as I continued examining and scrutinizing this figure I did find another spot that could spell danger in the future. Someone else on this forum already brought it up, but the section by the hips that lift up are HIGHLY susceptible to damage and possible breakage. The section that juts out is simply too thin and fragile...so PLEASE be careful when handling.
As I continued inspecting the figure I did unfortunately discover 2 actual defects that will require me to reach out to my vendor, which is a major bummer because I really do hate bothering them about stuff...but I can't ignore it.
First, the face plate has a blatant scratch on it. And it sucks that HT now makes the face plate undetachable because now I'm gonna have to send the whole sculpt back instead of just the face plate.
Now the second defect is gonna be really hard to see on this photo because it is REALLY difficult to capture on camera. This is a paint issue and it's pretty much the same as what we've been seeing from those who have gotten the new gold Diecast Midas figure. There are splotches of white paint imperfections that show up when it's under light...but under normal conditions it would be hard to spot. But it's one of those, once you see it, you CAN'T unsee it. Luckily for me, it's only on the chest piece which is removable...so obtaining a replacement for that won't be a huge pain in the neck.
Anyways, here...take a look. Like I said, on camera it's VERY difficult to see, but in-hand it's quite obvious under proper lighting.
So that's it folks! Overall, HT defects aside, I like it! Could it be better, probably! But my first impression is that this a quality release. I do believe HT made changes to better reflect for movie-accuracy, so while I do think the prototype did look superior in its build...in the end, it's inaccurate, so if we're getting new changes we don't necessarily like, well...that's actually on Marvel then for making those changes later on.
I haven't taken a look at the starfish accessory yet, but I'll review that in my next post along with the Tony Stank headsculpt!
Hope this review was informative!
